Attract "Good" Beta Test Users

Question

I'm sure many of you have side projects which you plan to eventually release to the public (be it a free or commercial venture).

How do you attract good beta testers though, which you naturally can't pay - it's still a side project at this point - but are interested enough to test your application and understand that things break?

While being able to get a few friends, often times real issues reveal themselves only after you have >100 beta testers. Any suggestions on how to get those if you don't happen to own a well-known blog or similar people contacts?

Answer 1

We always used to do our alpha testing in house in a very methodical way. I've worked in organisations that actually have specialised alpha testers through to developers alpha testing their own work.

So far, I've found no difference in the quality of output between a dedicated alpha tester vs a developer. Alpha testing is usually very methodical.

But you're asking about beta testers. They tend to be less methodical.

Personally I think the best beta testers are the people that use the software and not their managers. Although, the project managers often have a better understanding of what it should do. The people that use it will find the bugs more quickly. Who's going to use it in the end? Provided they can tell you the steps that led up to the problem then they would be the best. Often thats not possible... so build into your system detailed logging that tells you what they were doing at the time.

Answer 2

1. Give your testers a credit in the final product and make sure they know about it.
2. Give them a discount or a free copy of the application.
3. Give their feature requests priority over non-testers.